


Once Upon A Dream

by InAmongstTheMountains



Category: Dragon Age - All Media Types, Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: F/M, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-07-03
Updated: 2015-07-03
Packaged: 2018-04-07 10:50:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,229
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4260495
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/InAmongstTheMountains/pseuds/InAmongstTheMountains
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>I know you, I walked with you once upon a dream<br/>I know you, that look in your eyes is so familiar a gleam<br/>And I know it's true that visions are seldom all they seem</p>
            </blockquote>





	Once Upon A Dream

Solas woke to the cool breeze and the last tendrils of afternoon sunlight slipping from the garden. With the evening shadows brought the dew and the scent of damp earth rose up around him. The mage closed his eyes once more, content to remain were he lay in the grass, embracing the quiet and solitude as the Inquisition’s forces were away, making their slow track back from the Arbor Wilds. The absence of swords clashing, anvils working, and horses nickering impatiently was a welcome one. Humans had made this place one of habitation and war. To the Elves it had been a site of ritual and prayer.

Skyhold, Tarasyl’an Te’las. The place where the Sky is kept.

The magic the ancient elves worked still echoed within the ancient stones. A thousand years of wear and weather could not dissipate the ageless spells and sacrifices that had been laid upon the mountain over and over again. For any keenly attuned to the Fade, the magical echos left in this place had an ebb and flow to them, and carried a song so old and impossibly sad that the sheer beauty could inspire tears from seemingly no where. Solas found a sort of melancholic comfort within the lost music, letting it pull at him in the moments when he was most vulnerable: the spaces between sleep and awake.

The fleeting notes that touched him today were of mourning and concern and he resisted total wakefulness in favor of holding to them for as long as he could. The tune was fitting, considering the loss of life at the Temple of Mythal, and the events there had taken a toll on everyone. Especially Lady Lavellan.

Solas had not yet approached Lavellan on the Well, perhaps out of vain hope that he would not have to meet her eyes and see the burden of not knowing behind them. Instead he put off the conversation, preferring to let the last moments of innocence have their dance before he was moved to halt them.

Slumber was just about to reclaim him when a voice broke the silence, the sweet melodic chords of bygone days that remained in the tongues of the People.

“Solas?” Are you out here?“

He smiled, but his eyes stayed shut. "Over here, emma lath.”

“There you are. Are you alright, you’ve been quiet since we got back?”

Something between a chuckle and a sigh escaped him, for he had taken Atlas’ place in holding up the world. “Quieter than usual? There has been a great deal to consider.”

He didn’t have to see her to know the frown she wore. That little one where she bunched her lips to one side and debated actually saying what was on her mind.  In place of responding, the back of Lavellan’s hand brushed a soft stroke along his cheek. 

“Would you consider” Suddenly her voice was very close, her breath not on his ear “following me upstairs? I want to watch the sun set with you.”

Solas opened his eyes, only to be caught up in a quick kiss. She grinned against his mouth. “Don’t keep me waiting.”

By the time he sat up, the hem of Lavellan’s dress disappeared around the door. He stretched, satisfied in his rest. One sunset, that would be fine. One sunset, and then he’d tell her what weighed on him. About Mythal, about the Well, about…. their future. The shadows had moved well into the garden. 

The throne room stood quiet, the late-day light refracting off the towering stained glass. Solas paid little mind to the few people that lingered in the hall, their voices little more than ghostly whispers in the back of his mind. While selfish, and ultimately, foolish, all thoughts remained on his Lady Lavellan. One last small moment, then he’d tell her everything.

Ascending the stairs with quick ease, he stopped to breath before entering her bedroom. Composure, he need composure, to find solace in the dying orange light and the soft thrum of magic within the stones.

The sunlight in her room was dazzling, a thousand colors through the air. Her balcony door stood open.

“Vhenan, I-”

An arrow found him in the heart.

Solas gasped and stumbled. Blood blossomed, a sickly red flower through his tunic. The breath in his lungs fled, along with any words he might had. Where the arrow entered the flesh seared, filled with a heat and darkness that he could barely comprehend.

“Ar tu nadin, Harellen. Emma shem'nan.”

He gasped, face a mask of pain. The woman on the balcony was not his Lavellan, instead she was a warrior goddess, powerful body wrapped in armor like darkness, on her head a crown of gilded antlers. Her eyes molten silver, like storms and madness and ice. She held another arrow ready.

“Andruil!  Ar-”

Another arrow took him in the shoulder, the Dread Wolf fell back onto the floor. His head swam, ears ringing, hands trembling, and all around the sickly stench of blood.

“Andruil.” He choked out in elvish. “I can explain. Let me.”

“No.” It was not Andruil who answered, Solas struggled to turn his head towards the high cold faces shrouded in shadow of Falon'din, and his brother. The wicked ravens Fear and Deceit cackled cruelly from Dirthamen’s shoulders. 

“You betrayed us, Wolf, you we named brother, whom we shared our secrets, you tore us from the believers, from the dreams, and starved us of ourselves, deep in the void.”

“For the People, for all of us!” He shouted in the old tongue, feeling his strength leaving him. Whatever the arrows were made of he felt their taint poison him, eating away at his mind and magic. “For a better world, safe from the human’s, I-" Bile and blood rose in his throat.

An awful chuckle echoed in the room. "Poor, poor, Dread Wolf. The world was yours and what did you do with it?” Elgar'nan loomed behind him. “You let it rot.”

 _Rot! Rot!_  The crows cawed.  

“Please.” His beg a whisper. There was barely anything in him, the little strength he’d regained since awakening had all but slipped away. “I know, I know, let me fix it.”

“Oh da'assan.” Solas’ vision blurred, but he could never have forgotten Mythal’s voice. She laughed at her own little joke. “So far you’ve traveled, so many lives you’ve seen and taken. So many promises slipping from your fingers. Do you really think you can mend what you’ve sundered?”

“Yes, yes. Give me another chance, I can. I will. If its the last thing I do.”

The goddess of vengeance laughed. “Once more, little Wolf. Once more.” She reached down and grasped the arrow that pierced his heart, drawing a cry from the mage dying in his own pool of blood. “You know what you must do.” She twisted the arrow in deep. “Now wake up.”

—-

Solas jerked wide-eyed awake in a cold sweat, heart racing. No blood, no arrows, no gods. A nightmare… Oh, spirits, the Fade had tricked the trickster. 

There weighed a great agony in his chest where Andruil’s arrow had pierced. His regret, his hopes, his lies, all in one black knot.

“Solas?” Lavellan’s curious voice echoed through the doorway and Solas flinched.

Mythal’s voice rang in his head.  _'You know what you must do.’_

_I’m so sorry ma vhenan._

_'What you must do.’_

**Author's Note:**

> I listened to Lana Del Rey's song an embarrassing amount of times for this.


End file.
